404 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



keeping. The old gentleman is occasionally behind the times, but he knows a 

 thing or two. 



Besides kinks and short cuts, there is another department depending largely 

 upon the general contributor for support. You know how provoking the bee-books 

 are sometimes. You look up something, and apparently find out all about it ; then 

 work according to directions, and fail : and after finding out the right way by ex- 

 perience, you look it up again, and find that it did tell you of that point, but in such 

 a way that you failed to appreciate its connection with the rest. Or, that point 

 may have been omitted entirely in the book. You can't expect everything of a book. 

 If all details were given so as to preclude any possibility of a mistake in any de- 

 partment, the result would be a regular encyclopedia, and would defeat its own 

 object— people would care neither to buy nor to read such a book. But an article 

 describing the process, in a bac-k number of the Bee Journal, would likely be much 

 more detailed and satisfactory than the description in the book ; the writer, writing 

 from fresh experience, and not bothered with the desire to be brief, would probably 

 be so impressed with that particular point, that there would be no mistake about 

 what he meant. There is considerable value in articles which treat of nothing new, 

 but only tell how some man successfully did something. 



Who will write such articles ? Not the "veterans," altogether; they are too 

 much occupied with the "unsolved problems " of apiculture; it must be largely the 

 rank and file, providing, of course, they have a certain amount of experience. They 

 should be given in few words if possible ; but better too many than none at ^11. 



Finally, let contributors remember that they are casting bread upon the waters; 

 every contribution which is a fruit of their experience adds not only to knowledge, 

 but also to the desire of imparting knowledge, and they will reap the fruits of it in 

 lea.rning more of the experience of others. The " let us hear from all the brethren " 

 idea, being an essential principle of human nature, must be represented somewhere. 

 It will not "overboard into the deep, deep sea " yet awhile, though a dozen Mr. 

 Hastys flourish their scissors at it. Arvada Colo. 



[See page 391 for editorial comments on the above " kinky" article. — Editor. 1 

 XHAX BEE-ESCAPE HONEY-BOARD. 



BY W. C. LYMAN. 



I should like to say in reply to Dr. Miller's question on page 275— "Why not 

 merely leave a hole for drones to get out without any escape, in that plan of W. C. 

 Lyman's ?"— because the idea is to have all the bees get to work as a part of the 

 working force of the colony as soon as possible, and not to have any division of in- 

 terest caused by a second entrance to any part of the hive. 



Young queens could return through a hole as well as drones, and thus set up a 

 little kingdom, or queendom, of their own in the upper brood-chamber, which would 

 be a bad state of things if that brood-chamber is to be removed, or exchanged for 

 the lower one, as will be seen farther on. 



I first used a cone escape, but it was not satisfactory, for the bees returned 

 through it. 



• In this plan I want the hive to return to its normal condition of brood-chamber 

 with supers as soon as possible. 



In using this plan of preventing increase, I hive the swarms on frames having 

 very narrow starters of foundation, the foundation projecting below the comb guide 

 of the frames about one row of cells. I use a wood-zinc honey-board between the 



